Ok, fine: the December 2017 Blog Income and Transparency Report – $1,128 NET

This post may contain affiliate links. Read the disclosure for more info.

You might be wondering WHY it took me so long to publish the December blog income report, here’s why:

I didn’t want to.

Plain and simple. I didn’t feel like revisiting the month of December for reasons listed below, and also didn’t feel like writing the post.

“It really doesn’t contain a lot of value for bloggers anyways…” I told myself. “I’ll just skip Dec and pick back up in January when I have something to report.”

Heck, I even tried to reason my way out of doing it via a tweet…

ok fine

Then it hit me…

THIS INTRO is the valuable part.

Why was I hesitant/fearful to publish this?

Why didn’t I want to write it?

Why did I feel it lacked value?

The answer to these questions is what is going to prove valuable to you this month, and it boils down to this:

So what really happened in December?

Nothing exciting at all.

Revenues were down, as I didn’t quite hit the Blogger U pre-launch sales figure I wanted to (I expected 3-5 more buyers).

Traffic was fine, though I didn’t work on this at all.

Email list actually decreased, as I’ve had unsubscribes and haven’t focused on growth.

Blogger U IS starting to come together, but progress is slower than I planned for

Vacation was fun, but I feel guilty for not working.

Podcast downloads DID increase (if you’ll remember from November’s report, this is something I wanted to have happen), so I’m thankful for that.

But the bottom line is: It feels like I didn’t work during December.

This is potentially embarrassing for somebody whose self-proclaimed purpose in life right now is to teach people blogging. I didn’t actually do a ton of blogging. Or if I did, it certainly didn’t manifest itself into a whole lot.

This got me down.

This made me want to scrap the December income report in an attempt to ignore the problem, and distract myself with other work.

No, publishing the post below is the hard part. I’m doing the hard part right now. What’s your hard part?

Forget your blog. What don’t you want to do today? This week?

What juicy, idealistic, opinionated thing do you want to say…but have been afraid to?

What are you embarrassed to write about, even though you probably should? Or even if you’re responsible for?

What’s the hard part of you’re blog right now, and how can you just get it done?

**

Truth be told, I’m hoping the intro above will increase your loyalty to Do You Even Blog. Not even me, Pete, but the brand.

The brand of helping bloggers push through blog mediocrity and come out on the other side not only alive, but thriving. Reaching people, despite the uncomfortable process.

Teaching people with your failures, in addition to your successes.

Now that I’ve explained the delay in this post, as well as lowered all expectations…let’s dig in.

Monthly Blog Income Report

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Did I reach my blogging goals last month?

Last months goals were

Traffic: 3,000 YES – 4,903

Email subs: 950 NO – 930

Revenues: $2,000 NO – $1,206

Project: Work on Blogger U! YES

Honestly, my entire focus was on building out Blogger U curriculum, content planning, and trying to line up affiliates for that. In this case, I was successful.

The big fail (which we’ll discuss in a second), was not getting 2-3 more B.U. students. :-/

December blog traffic

Other blog metrics

Podcast downloads = 3,096!

THIS was a pretty big win, as I’ve been really wanting to increase my podcast downloads lately, and expand my reach that way. I care way more about this than I do blog traffic right now.

december podcast downloads

Private Facebook group = 160 members. I’ve been pretty selective in who I let in honestly. If they don’t actually answer the 2 easy questions I set forth, why on Earth would I want them in the group?

I want to keep it small, tight-knit, healthy, and helpful. I like it the way it currently is lol.

That’s why I’m limiting the group to 500 members max.

Next month’s goals and how I’m going to get there:

Revenue: $1,000

Traffic: 4,000 visits

Subs: 950

WORK ON B.U.

Focus: GET B.U. content done! It’s so incredibly important. This might be the single biggest revenue driver for my business over the next 5 years. On top of that, I already have students eagerly awaiting the content.

Gotta get it done.

How I’m going to get revenue

Honestly? Client work for other bloggers, and maybe some affiliate revenues. I do not care.

How I’m going to get traffic

Who gives a shit.

How I’m going to get email subscribers

Not my focus this month.

How I’m going to get podcast downloads

Produce good content that changes people. First and foremost, nothing else I can do right now is as important or as effective as this….for the long run.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Hey Pete!
1. I don’t publish my stats. I do track them though so I can see how I’m doing but I don’t think they’re worth sharing at this point.
2. Thumbs up.
3. My theme for January is to crawl out from under my introverted rock and CONNECT more with other bloggers.

Hi Pete,
Thank you for posting. I am feeling the same way about January as you did for December. It’s halfway through the month and I’ve published ONe post when my goal was 6. So, I got some catching up to do…

With that said, my traffic has been growing steadily so I am happy about that. But I have much, much more to do in terms of growing and developing my blog presence.

About your quesitons:
1) No, I don’t publish blogging stats! I don’t know if my readers would necessarily find that relevant but I should consider doing it at some point!
2) I LOVe your December report. This is probably the side of blogging people dont’ talk about enough. On Pinterest, all the widely circulated pins are how people are so successful in doing X-Y-Z but they didn’t get to that point without failing or missing their goals here and there. Thank you for painting a realistic goal for all of us bloggers. We need more of this!
3) My theme is to just get going for January. I am doing a lot of behind the scene stuff to set myself up for going full time in February… so there’s that!

Love the honesty here. Even though you did not hit your goal, I certainly think you are on track. BU will take off once you have students showing success after attending it. It may take time but if it’s good, you will get here.

No stats from me. I’ll update something quarterly to track progress against my goals. My avatar does not care about blogging stats so I don’t publish regular reports.

Love your speaking/writing/podcasting style. Have only skimmed one or two of your interviews, but your voice and style is easily top 5 in the industry. Keep it up!

One thing that doesn’t make sense though, is why you’re so intent on working on Blogger U? There are so many ways you can make money with this blog, jumping in to course creation, teaching others how to do, what you haven’t quite yet done with your own blog, is probably creating a disconnect subconsciously.

It also doesn’t seem like you’ve created nearly enough content yet, to get the success you listed. Why not change how you get to your end goal and short term targets?

For instance, (dammit this would be a shitload easier in a video!) if you want to sell a course (Blogger U), but aren’t quite there yet, one of the things you can do is lay the foundational content that would promote the course now. Then interview successful bloggers that have a similar course(s) you can promote as an affiliate that you trust.

Later, when you’re further along and have had more time to perfect your own, you come back to that content and change how it’s monetized. It’s going to take time anyway, it hardly ever happens as fast as we want it to.

In the meantime, you’re able to create revenue quicker, so you can grow the blog at the pace you’re talking about wanting.

You’re totally correct on the content quantity, as well as laying a foundation, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. The reason I’m also creating BU so early is because

1 – It’s a beta program suiting up for when I’m further along 😉
2 – I have the time right now
3 – People are paying for it
4 – I’m not the only one teaching it
5 – There’s a secret partnership I can’t announce yet.

It’s a long-term game, and isn’t really disrupting my content flow for January, so I’m all in right now 😉

I think you’re too hard on yourself, but I hear you. I feel like I should have worked more in December than I did, but it’s a fine balance with the holidays and family time.

Anyway, are you doing podcast interviews and guest posts elsewhere? Doing so will grow your traffic, your list, and your podcast downloads. That’s a big part of my strategy for growth this year. Plus, it’s fun and you get to share your sparkly personality! 🙂

I do really appreciate your transparency with the wins and the struggles of growing an online business. And that will lead you to a more engaged fanbase as opposed to a lot of website visitors and email subscribers who don’t really pay attention to what you have to say. I think you’re already on the right track due to the engagement I see on your blog and in your FB group. 🙂

I don’t release income reports. Mostly because I’m lazy with accounting and do several months in batches instead of keeping it up to date.

Thanks for sharing. It’s tough when you don’t meet your goals, but you gotta stay consistent. We’ve talked about it and you keep hitting that point on almost every episode.

Excited for Blogger U to be released!

My January goal is to finish my email course – 7 Days To Your Dream Vacation For Less. I’ve been hammered by bronchitis the last 2 weeks, so productivity has been almost nil besides bare necessities. But I need to focus and cross the finish line.

Absolutely love your writing style and blunt voice! It cracks me up! I find it hard to post monthly blog reports as well if I don’t do as well as I’d hoped. But there is always someone out there who will find it helpful. I’m excited to follow your journey!